In June California health officials issued an advisory for gay and bisexual men, as well as transgender people and HIV positive individuals, to get vaccinated against meningococcal disease after another outbreak was reported in Los Angeles.
Alerts about the deadly disease have become a near annual occurrence since 2012, when a meningitis outbreak infected a dozen men who have sex with men in New York City. In December of that year, San Francisco public health officials encouraged gay men planning to travel to New York City to get the vaccination.
This year, since the beginning of May, meningococcal disease cases have been identified in men living in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, most gay or bisexual, according to the California Department of Public Health. As of this month, Los Angeles health officials have diagnosed 17 cases, leading to calls for gay and bi men traveling there to get vaccinated.
Meningococcal disease is caused by the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis and can result in meningitis and bloodstream infections (sepsis). Although rare, meningococcal disease is serious and potentially fatal. It is spread through close personal contact and can be spread from person to person by small droplets of respiratory secretions from the nose and throat.
Symptoms begin a few days after exposure and may include fever, chills, vomiting, severe headache, stiff neck, confusion, rash, nausea or vomiting, and generalized muscle pains. Anyone who develops these symptoms, especially those with HIV, should immediately seek medical care and warn health officials, either by calling 911 or going to the nearest emergency room.
Due to the serious nature of the disease, the Los Angeles LGBT Center reached out to a number of hookup sites popular with gay and bisexual men and asked them to warn their users about the latest meningitis outbreak and to encourage getting vaccinated. While Hornet, Scruff and Grindr all issued alerts at no cost to their Los Angeles-area users, the owners of Online-Buddies, the parent company of Manhunt and Jack'd, "steadfastly refused," according to a blog post by the community center last weekend.
"Show me the money" was the company's message, wrote Jim Key, the center's chief marketing officer.
In a July 14 email, which Key shared with the Bay Area Reporter, Online-Buddies CEO Hector Camacho wrote, "Yes we charge for all campaigns," and instructed the center to contact it again "when you receive funding for your campaign."
David S. Novak, the company's senior health strategist and director of advertising, in a July 6 email dismissed the center's request that Manhunt and Jack'd issue their own alerts since "given many users will be on multiple apps you can rest assure [SIC] your free campaigns on other sites may reach our users."
He added "having worked in public health for years and now in private industry public health must devote more funding to outbreak response."
His reply is particularly egregious considering Novak not only formerly worked for both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health but also advised the Elton John AIDS Foundation's internet partner notification program workgroup.
Yet this isn't the first time Online-Buddies has refused to assist public health officials unless they pay up. Maryland health officials received a similar response last December when they reached out to a number of male hookup sites to request that they warn their users, particularly in the Baltimore area, about a Shigella outbreak among gay and bisexual men.
This week California officials issued their own alert about an outbreak of Shigella among gay and bi men in Los Angeles. Since May there have been 14 reported cases, with five requiring hospitalization.
Yet there is nothing about the Shigella warning on the Manhunt Cares website nor is there any information about the meningitis outbreak.
Rather than profit off such critical health warnings, Online-Buddies should follow the lead of its fellow hookup sites and freely issue alerts to its users. The company should join other active members of Building Healthy Online Communities, the collaboration between health officials and hookup sites to bring up-to-date information to users of such services.
If not, then Manhunt and Jack'd users could be signing off, permanently.